At noon today, in Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater, novelist Scott Turow announced the nominees for the 2008 National Book Awards. In all, 200 publishers around the country submitted 1,258 books into the fevered competition–six percent more books than last year’s list.
Out of 271 submitted titles, the Fiction nominees are: Aleksandar Hemon for The Lazarus Project, Rachel Kushner for Telex from Cuba, Peter Matthiessen for Shadow Country, Marilynne Robinson for Home, Salvatore Scibona for The End.